We report regularly about Visopsys - one of the few hobby operating systems that survived where virtually all the others (SkyOS, Syllable, etc.) died out. They've got a new website, which seems like a nice occasion to give it some attention again.

The bulk of Visopsys is a fully multitasking, 100% protected mode, virtual-memory, massively-monolithic-style kernel. Added to this is a bare-bones C library and a minimal suite of applications - together comprising a small but reasonably functional operating system which can operate natively in either graphical or text modes. Though it's been in continuous development for a number of years, realistically the target audience remains limited to operating system enthusiasts, students, and assorted other sensation seekers.

Syllable has come a long way, and is every bit as usable as, say, Haiku these days. Of course, my definition of "usable" is probably not the same as most people's; I have an old PIII laptop that I keep around for running native BeOS and old Windows games, and Syllable makes for a great modern OS for that machine. About the only modern GNU/Linux distro that can run acceptably on it is either Slackware with a minimal X WM (Fluxbox or xmonad), or Puppy Linux, which I don't care for.

Of course, Syllable's usefulness is limited to basic tasks or dogfooding the Syllable OS, and since I'm not a developer on that (or any) project it's more of a happy curiosity than anything else. I like it though.

I have an old PIII laptop that I keep around for running native BeOS and old Windows games, and Syllable makes for a great modern OS for that machine.

So all these OSes are just used for old hardware which can be easily surpassed by a 40$ RaspberryPi which uses a lot less energy (~5W?).
So why ? why still using these old OS while there is an alternative with many usable apps and support ?

Sometimes I ask myself why some developers who are expert enough to create an OS can't start writing useful things for Linux that only a small fraction can do it: OpenCL acceleration of apps, OpenGL Shaders, Graphics drivers, vector graphics rendering library, optimization, refactoring of huge and badly architectured apps, ...
They can even try breaking usual habits in computing and come up with new solutions not tested before.
(For BeOS, I remember the database-like filesystem, and the ultra massive use of threads)

IMHO, these guys are losing their life while they can become gods in an other world and another community.

Nothing significant has been added to Syllable for years. A lot of the main devs left or were driven out, and the obsession with REBOL has consumed so much time that I don't see it ever gaining momentum again. REBOL is very much a problem in search for an answer. It's lovely for Kai that he was able to showcase it as a first class language with in an operating system, but there is so much else wrong with the current releases of Syllable as to make you really wonder what the point in adding such an overly specific and niche language to an OS with its feet strongly in the C/C++ world was.